


You're Out of Touch, I'm Out of Time

by The_Exile



Category: Chrono Trigger
Genre: Apocalyptic Doom, Gen, Spoilers, Time Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-09 01:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13470606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Exile/pseuds/The_Exile
Summary: A certain Old Man first arrives at the End of Time.





	You're Out of Touch, I'm Out of Time

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be a prompt fill but then I realised it didn't meet the prompt criteria.

Thick grey mist drifted over an infinite black void. 

The Guru blinked. As soon as he arrived, dusting himself off just as the angry crackling blue scar in time and space retracted from existence again, he knew that this place was wrong. Not necessary bad, just fundamentally impossible. For instance, why was he standing on what he knew to be complete emptiness? Not that he wanted to drift endlessly through nothing - the thought brought a cold shiver of creeping dread down his spine - but he was almost as disturbed that there was a neat little plaza with a working lamp of some kind, iron railings, a few stone archways to nowhere and a bucket that should be empty but was scaring him.

"Hey..." he said, realising how stupid he sounded just as his words left his mouth. The thin, artificial atmosphere heavy with magic was making his head go funny. Just perceiving the world around him - cause and effect, the passage of one scene in life to another - was an active chore.

As if time was all wrong...

"Someone's already here, I guess," he managed, stepping up the first neat brick stair of the plaza. Nobody answered him. He shrugged.

"Could be abandoned," he supposed, feeling a little silly talking to himself. Still, breaking the silence helped rescue what few vestiges remained of his sanity. I've got to keep it together, he told himself, wherever this is, it's still under threat. Everywhere is, as long as the Queen still insists on unleashing... that!

His chrononometer, strapped to his belt next to a series of other magitechnological implements that came in handy when you were a Guru of Time, started making a series of beeps like the screeches of a panicked cat, then heating up to uncomfortable levels. He flung it to the floor before it could explode or catch fire. Instead of detonating, it beeped even louder and the readings on it went wild, surging up to impossibly high numbers before reporting 'divide by zero error', then shorting out and going blank.

"So, is this the beginning of time, or...?"

"The end. The last possible point in the timestream before the weight of the cosmic singularity drawing all matter and information equally into it makes all numbers meaningless. Now quit dumping garbage here," snapped a high-pitched voice, "Why do people just assume there's nothing here and it's okay to fly-tip without permission? I despair... some time periods..."

"I know the feeling, to be honest," he sighed, "Anyway, I'm sorry, I'm just experiencing some technical problems."

"Want some help? I suck at machines but at least I have billions of years of experience of everything," said the voice, which turned out to be a creature familiar to him as a Nu, except red, a colour he had never seen them in before, "I'm Spekkio, by the way. I'm not always the same species. I'm doing reincarnation testing. Did your technical problems get you here, by any chance?"

"Gaspar," he replied, "Guru of time. And my situation is... complicated. And kind of urgent, so I really need to tell someone before its too late. Is there a way to get messages out of here?"

"Well, there are time portals, but I never know where they go and it might be the heart of a volcano or hundreds of feet in the air. Never go near the bucket, " he suddenly added more hastily and seriously than his normal tone of voice, "That said, lately the number of visitors has drastically increased, to my eternal annoyance. I would have guessed important things were afoot without you telling me. I suggest waiting around and having a chat. It's probably destiny that someone come and help you anyway. Nice to see a civilised face for a change, by the way. How do you take your tea?"

"Delivered to me in the correct time period if possible. Not exploding if I'm lucky. Right way up. Oh, and two sugars, fairly strong," he added as an afterthought.

Spekkio turned into a frog and hopped off to boil the kettle.


End file.
